tell me i'm not dreaming (i couldn't bear it if i were)
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: "Their story always starts like this: there is a blonde haired girl with flowers in her hair, and a redhead boy with a smile always on his lips and they just click." Or in which Hannah and Fred meet in every universe, and they live through these lives in their dreams. (complete AU) For mew-tsubaki.


**tell me I'm not dreaming (I couldn't bear it if I were)**

Their story always starts like this: there is a blonde haired girl with flowers in her hair, and a redhead boy with a smile always on his lips and they just click.

This is the nice part – the beginning where Hannah learns how to love.

This is just the beginning though, and Hannah has learned long ago that just because a story has a happy beginning doesn't mean the story will be a happy one.

 _(yes, she thinks one morning as she wakes up, vivid pictures of the blood of a boy she hasn't yet learned how to love still painted behind her eyelids, theirs is rarely happy.)_

Hannah has a secret you see: every time she closes her eyes and sleeps, she dreams of a different world.

In some of them she's happy, in others she's not. She's evil sometimes, good others – she's chased by the government for setting London on fire one time, another she's burned at stake for being a witch (and maybe that's the closest word for what she is).

One night she's the most vicious serial killer the world has ever known, the next she runs an orphanage.

Her lives get darker the more she ages – she's sixteen when she dreams she's being raped for the first time, seventeen when she dies for the first time (violently, that is – she's known old age and sickness for years now).

In all of her worlds though, there are two constants.

The first, and the one that she had the hardest time realizing is there, is this wordless threat of something _more_ being out there.

 _('a war is coming,' whispers a man she's healing. One time, she just dreams of an oppressing darkness, and though she wakes up well rested, a feeling of unease follows her all day._

' _Can't you see it?' A woman shouts one morning in the street, her voice washed away by the crowd the newt instant.)_

The second is him. He always has a different name, but his face never changes.

Whomever she may be, whatever she may be doing, he always finds her.

It's kind of weird actually, because it's almost always as if he doesn't quite belong there (where there is for this night), or at least that's the feeling she gets once she wakes up.

He has brown eyes that look far too wise, and laughter lines that she just knows she helped put there.

She knows him in every world except her own, and she can't help hoping every morning as she wakes up, that maybe today is the day that will change.

 _(it never works though, until one day it does, and even then it's hardly what she could have expected from all the way they've already met)_

It actually happens when she least expects it, and maybe that shouldn't surprise her because she dreams of different lives every night, how could it be anything else?

They've already had thousands of first meetings, so this one is hardly unique – she has 'lived' through every variation on every theme, or so it seems – but it's different just because it happens here, where it's actually real.

They don't meet in a coffee shop, where he hands her her drink, her change, and his number scribbled in purple ink on the side of her cup _(though that has happened more times than she cares to count)_.

He doesn't save her life, doesn't push her out of the way of a drunk driver, doesn't take a bullet meant for her. He's not the first person she sees when she opens up her eyes after years of coma _(that had almost been a restful night)_ , nor the fireman that pulls her out of her burning office.

No, though all of those scenarios happened at least once in her dreamed worlds, what happens there is much simpler, though definitely weirder.

She's on her way to work – not exactly late, but she's certainly not going to get there early, especially if she doesn't hurry – when they walk right into each other.

It's the kind of thing that happens to her way too often. She's not clumsy, but it takes her mind some time to pull itself out of whatever life she had gotten stuck in for the previous night, and so she's almost always distracted in the mornings.

Anyway, they collide rather violently – so violently, in fact, that she nearly falls.

The only thing that keeps her steady is his hand on her forearm, and the moment their eyes meet, Hannah's mind goes _'oh'_.

 _(for a moment though, she feels like she's falling – like the ground has opened up beneath her feet – and it's a feeling she's long learned to associate with panic)_

 _(for a moment, she has to wonder if she's living a dream again – still? – only for the first time she doesn't know it. What'd happen if she were to wake up now, where would she end up?)_

She barely hears his startled apology, or the words that follow it – she doesn't register much of anything.

Her world seems to shrink down to just the both of them, and it almost feels like an eternity has gone by when she finally opens her mouth to answer him.

She doesn't know what she could say to him – he'd think her crazy if she ever mentioned that they keep meeting in her dreams, even though she knows in her heart that they're not really dreams – but she doesn't get the chance.

She blinks, and he's gone, vanishing from her sight as quickly as he had entered it.

 _(her arm is still tingling from where he touched it, but that's the only clue he was real)_

 **.x.**

She's even more distracted than usual at work, and for once she's actually eager to leave by the time her boss, Susan, comes to tell her that it's time to go.

When she exits the building, he's there, waiting for her.

 _(she has a flash-back to this life where she had been a serial-killer, where he had been the one to twist a knife in her stomach until she had woken up screaming in her bed - his words had been the last she had ever heard in that life, but she had never understood why he'd apologized – and she almost laughs, because she's pretty sure he doesn't mean her any harm this time around)_

She doesn't know why, but she trusts him. Maybe that's why she follows him when he asks her to go with him – or maybe she remembers the hundred times he taught her how to make a flower crown _('my sister taught me,' he always said sheepishly),_ and he smiles now in the exact same way he did then.

They end up in a small café she knows makes the best latte – when she can, she likes to spend her breaks there – sitting face to face at a table by the window.

She doesn't really know what to say to him in the beginning, because where to you start with someone you've known you're entire life, but never officially met – or at least not in this life – but he takes care of that quickly enough.

Her mystery-man's name is Fred, and just like her, he dreams of lives he's never lived.

Unlike her though, he knows what it means.

"No one is really sure of anything, but mostly the idea is that we're there to witness something," Fred tells her. "I'm not the best person to explain all this though."

"You mean we're not alone?" Hannah asks in a shocked whisper she hopes won't be heard by anyone other than the two of them – she really likes this café, and she doesn't want people there to think she's crazy.

"We're not alone," Fred repeats with a soft smile, but his tone is bittersweet. "We're not exactly legion, but last I heard, our numbers were in the thousands."

Thousands. Hannah can't believe it – she spent her life thinking she was the only one cursed this way: to think that there are others who know what she goes through and live the same way… It's more than she ever hoped for.

Fred's next words cut her enthusiasm short though. "We can't exactly meet up here though."

Hannah frowns - it doesn't make sense to her, that people would rather stay on their own when they could finally share their experience with others who'd understand them.

"But why? I get that we might not all live in the same place, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to talk about what happens to us in person? I thought I was going mad for the longest time, and surely I can't have been the only one who'd have appreciated some information, if anyone out there had it!"

Fred looks pained at that. "It's not that easy," he explains. "When we do meet up, things change, and it's not always better that way…"

"Change? What do you mean?"

Fred looks incredibly uncomfortable as he struggles to find his next words. "I can't really explain it… It's something you'll have to see for yourself. But… that's the reason we don't usually meet in person."

He looks almost sorry for her too – no, he is sorry for her (after lives lived at his side, she thinks she might know him and his tells better than anyone else) – and he's saved from answering anymore of her questions, and she has a lot of them, by the ringing of his phone.

The thing is an old monstrosity, the kind that probably was years out of date when it was bought, and that has lived a long life since then too, complete with purple and pink stickers proclaiming peace and love for all on its back.

She knows it well, because she once had a phone exactly like it – down to the last sticker – in another life, and Fred (then Simon) had kept stealing it from her.

To see it here again makes her breath catch almost painfully in her chest.

Hannah has always tried to push away the events of her other life out of her mind, and that means she always tries to choose things she knows she didn't have or want in other worlds. It's not always possible of course, but she never once considered that she could hang on to the nice parts of her lives in this world.

She turns away and pretends not to listen in – it's the polite thing to do after all – but really the call couldn't be more ordinary. She doesn't really know what she expected, especially after they just talked about other lives and people who could travel to other worlds in their dreams, but the normalcy of it all leaves a kind of bitter taste in her mouth.

The call barely lasts five minutes, and she spends it sipping at coffee that has grown lukewarm. She would have ordered another if she hadn't known from the frown on Fred's forehead meant that their discussion wouldn't last much longer.

As expected, Fred stands and rummages through his pockets until he finds his wallet, all the while apologizing for having to leave so soon.

He leaves her his number though, saying that she might need it.

"I know it's probably as weird for you as it is for me, to meet here where we don't actually know each other," Hannah says, and she's rewarded by having Fred blush slightly (no doubt he's thinking along the same lines as she is, remembering lives of intimacy they haven't really lived). "But meeting you there – that meant a lot to me. So thank you for that."

They part ways after that, not quite strangers anymore, but not quite friends either.

 _(it is a start though)_

 **.x.**

The rest of the day, or the few hours that remains, she spends at her place, trying desperately to keep busy so she won't fall asleep.

It's hardly the first time she's scared of going to bed – often that happens after she's experienced a particularly hard life and/or gruesome death – but this time feels different.

She can't help reliving Fred's words during their short discussion. What did he mean exactly by 'things change when we meet'?

She wasn't sure she could handle her life getting any weirder. Staying sane was enough of a problem now, what with thousands of lives clashing in her head at the oddest of times (thankfully the memories always receded by the time she reached her second cup of coffee in the mornings, but tidbits tended to resurface from time to time). She didn't need to add more complications to that.

Unfortunately, as she learned a long time ago, it is useless to fight against her tiredness – it always wins, and when it does, she sleeps for longer times, and remembers more.

 _(that doesn't mean she lives longer there though, or that she dreams of something else – no, that fate would be too kind)_

 **.x.**

She sleeps and she dreams, and when she wakes in a body that's hers but not, she knows exactly what he meant.

She had previously thought that there could be nothing worse than being forced to witness her own birth night after night – something that had actually dissuaded her of ever having her own children – but that actually is nothing compared to _living_ it.

The event is really indescribable – that first breath of air is both the most terrible and the most amazing thing she's ever done – and she sees everything in some sort of dual light.

Once with her newborn eyes and a second time with her own, but when she thinks of moving her arms, she does.

She's no longer trapped in this reality, in this dream-life from another world, and there is nothing more exhilarating nor frightening as that.

 _(being a baby, she screams and cries at that, until her not-parents manage to calm her down)_

Two not-weeks later, she's lying in her crib when she realizes that this new change can only have one origin _(she had been warned too, and Fred had looked so apologetic…)._

Well, at least he hadn't been wrong in saying that this wasn't the kind of thing that could be explained with words.

By the time her seventh birthday comes around, Hannah – though in this life she goes by Alicia – has figured out a few limitations to this newfound freedom she has. She's still not sure she enjoys the change though.

It had been much easier to just be a passenger, only half aware of what was happening through bursts of sharp clarity that only happened every now and then, and to be able to, if not forget, push past everything she had not-lived in time for breakfast.

She's afraid that won't happen anymore, and she desperately wants answers, but so far there hasn't been any signs of the one person she knows could give her those.

It's not weird though. For all that he is the one constant in all of her not-lives, they rarely meet as children, and so far she's also savoring the reprieve – she has no idea how to interact with a man she shares so much history with, especially when most of that history comes from too vivid fragments that are all that remains of their stories.

 _(she remembers their lives the way one remembers a beloved book – but sometimes she gets memories of emotions so strong they threaten to overcome her, and she wonders what it'd be like if those were really hers instead of belonging to another version of her)_

Besides, this not-life is far from the worse she's witnessed. In fact, it's perhaps one of the closest to her own she's had to live through, and she's very thankful her introduction to this new way of experiencing her other lives came in this form instead of one of the weirdest worlds she's witnessed.

 _(she doesn't know what she would have done with wings or magic, but it probably wouldn't have been pretty at first)_

Of course, she's learned a long time ago that tragedy always strikes when you expect it the least, and that's what happens now.

An epidemic starts half a world away, and spreads faster than any other illness that's been seen before.

It's not quite the zombie apocalypse – and Hannah would know, she's dreamed of living through those often enough – but no one has any idea on how to stop it either.

Panic spreads even faster than the disease, and two short years after the first death, a quarter of the world is sick or gone, and violence in the streets has become the norm rather than the exception.

As she grows older, Hannah finds that she enjoys more liberty in her not-body. Her own reflexes and thoughts seem to supplant those of whoever she replaced – and that's another very interesting question she'll have to ask Fred when she sees him again: what happens to the people whose lives they take over?

Do they just cease to exist, or were they never real in the first place? But then what of the lives she witnessed before, of the lives she just dreamed of instead of living like she does now?

It's frightening, but all of this pales in front of what she gains. Even if she's not always really in control of what happens, she lives through everything as it happens, and some intuition tells her that she will remember this better than she remembers her other dream-lives, and that matters.

What matters too is that for the first time in as long as she can remember, she dreams real dreams. They're nonsensical and in the mornings she can barely recall more than wisps of ideas, but they're something new and amazing, something she never has had before, and she likes that.

Everything else is still weird though, slightly disconnected in a way that just stops things from feeling completely real (and she wants that, sometimes so hard she scares herself, because no matter how crazy this world and the life she has there are, they're also still somehow more normal than anything else she's ever had).

Time passes strangely though, and that's the only indication she ever truly gets that this life isn't as real as it seems.

She finds that she skips days, sometimes weeks at times: she's there one moment, almost in control of everything, and the next she blinks and the world goes unfocused, almost blank. It happens less as she grows older in this life, as she somehow gets more control over her other self's actions, but when they do happen she loses longer stretch of time.

It's almost like the Hannah of this world is fighting her back, which never happened before. But then again she's never been this aware of her other lives – as far as she knows at least, since she can't really remember much about those – so maybe this is her new normal.

 _(it is – she can feel it in her bones. There is something different about this)_

She's glad for it though. She can't really imagine living through another's life so entirely when she's pretty sure she'll remember every part of it. She's afraid it would drive her mad, the way she had always feared her condition would.

Besides, while this world is far from the worse she's seen, it definitely ranks among them.

And then Alicia's parents – no, they're Hannah's too, she remembers them too perfectly for them to be anything else – die, and it's all her fault, and things get even worse.

Her mom gets sick – she refuses to tell them how but Hannah sees the guilt on her face whenever the woman thinks no one is looking – and she turns just a couple of days later.

 _(she's grateful for this at least – this illness acts fast, destroying everything in the brain of a person that makes them them and leaving behind an empty shell driven by some kind of primal anger and desire to make the world like them, but they don't suffer much)_

They lock her up in the house where they lived, because Hannah's father can't kill his wife, can't kill the woman he loves – "you'll understand someday," he tells her as he kisses the crown of her hair and hides his tears, but Hannah thinks about all the lives she knows she lives and all the times Fred and her have killed each other and never lived for long after that, and she can't help but think that maybe she already does – and leave.

But of course it isn't as easy as that – nothing ever is – because they're on the street now, and even if they had any, money has lost its worth years ago. Hannah's father works still and they get meal tickets from that, but without a roof over their head life gets that much rougher.

Hannah didn't realize how much she took that for granted before, or how she had still been living a sheltered life, in a home with her parents. She hadn't seen, couldn't have realized how bad things had truly gotten in the outside world when for her the only things that had changed had been the TV broadcasts no longer showing tales of wars but instead alerts about the diseased and discussions on how to cure them and the stricter rules.

But here in the street things are bad. They're accepted into a shelter soon enough, but the few days where they're forced to sleep outside with the hundreds of refugees just like them are some of the worst Hannah's ever lived.

With nothing else to do she was forced to relive again and again her mother's last moments, her tears drying on her face because she couldn't find it in her to wipe them off. That wasn't even the worst part though. No, what had shocked her the most was that no one had cared, and that all the faces she'd seen around her reflected her own grief.

How could she not have known this? How had she not suspected? She hates knowing that she turned a blind eye while the world was suffering – Hannah never believed herself a hero, never fooled herself into thinking that she had a _grand destiny_ the way some of her friends had, back when there greatest concern had been to determine who had built the best sandcastle, but she likes to think she can be a good person.

No that she has control over her other self's action, she hopes she can make a difference there, and make sure that somehow, no other life of hers will end with blood on her hands the way so many already have.

Which is somehow how Hannah finds herself running with a crew of other kids, skipping lessons – school is a thing of the past but there are still enough tutors and teachers to put together a semblance of education, and while it's nothing like it would have been it's still something – trying to find anything salvageable in their ruined city.

They help people also, sometimes – she may be no good against knifes or guns but the former are only good for close range and the latter are pretty rare, which is not to say that she has nothing to worry about, but means that once she knows the basics of fighting she can escape mostly unscathed.

Being part of a group is the best protection she can get too, because even the most foolhardy of men will consider shooting twice when they're faced with a dozen people standing in their way.

They climb abandoned building just for fun sometimes too – their leader, Nev' (and he looks so familiar Hannah could swear she's seen him somewhere, which is entirely possible considering how many half-forgotten memories are lurking in her head) always tells them to enjoy the little moments when they can – and watch the sunrise.

Those are Hannah's new favorite times, because up there the air almost tastes like freedom, and if she closes her eyes she can pretend that none of this is real, that if she takes just one step of this building all she'll feel is the fall and then she'll wake up safe in her own bed.

And maybe she would – but she's begun doubting it for months now, if not years. This life feels realer with each passing day while the one she thought was hers – the boring _normal_ life with the _normal_ job where she's an adult with no real responsibilities to anyone but herself – gets further and further away.

Sometimes it feels like she's drowning. There are moments she's so sure that this life, the one's she living right now, terrible as it is, is her real primary life that can almost convince herself that all these stories inside her head about other lives are just her method of coping with reality, and then there are times when she just wants this nightmare to end.

Like when she goes on an outing with her father, the first one they've had in months.

She's so happy she feels guilty of it (how dare she be happy in the middle of this disaster, her mind whispers cruelly), but it's been so long since she and her father have been able to be together without the ghost of her mother haunting them that she can't help but enjoy it.

Which is of course when something happens that ruins everything.

The attack comes out of nowhere – one minute she's sitting with her father, enjoying the last rays of sunshine of the day, the next they, and everyone else who had been quietly enjoying a peaceful afternoon, are surrounded by a dozen foaming monsters.

It's not even the first time Hannah sees them – it'd be impossible not to with the amount of time she spends roaming the streets, though she knows to stay well clear of anyone that looks sick – but it always shocks her, this way their illness has of no longer making them seem human.

Their eyes are empty and they move slowly and aimlessly, at least until they somehow realize there is someone to contaminate nearby.

She remembers joking about it once, comparing them to animals catching scent of their prey. It's not funny any longer, but the analogy still holds, and it's she best she's got.

They're dirty too, most of them at least partially covered in blood – part of the illness, she knows, makes their blood thicker which makes it seem like they can't bleed, but before it gets that bad they start scratching themselves until their skin is raw, and that stays with them after – and they're dressed in rags.

 _("it's the zombie apocalypse!" a guy from her class has laughed years ago. "This is going to be so much fun!")_

 _(he had had to put his parents down two weeks later when they got sick, and Hannah had never seen him again)_

The once quiet and peaceful plaza turns into a warzone in a blink of an eye, and Hannah honestly couldn't say how they manage to get out of there alive, but they do.

Not unscathed though – no, they couldn't be that lucky.

Hannah's fine, but her father isn't. She sees it in his eyes, the moment he realizes he may have been infected. It's like a shadow falls over his face, like someone turned off the lights.

"Maybe it's going to be fine," Hannah whispers fervently, "maybe you were just scratched by something when we were leaving and it's not…" She can't even say it. Even the thought of it is too painful.

"Maybe," her father answers with a reassuring smile, but they both know it's a fool's hope.

By the end of the week he'll be dead – and that's if she does the _right thing_ , if she chooses to report him the way he could never report her mother, because everyone knows that to report someone is essentially to give them a death sentence – or worse.

Hannah doesn't know what to say. She doesn't even know what to do.

Beside her, her father turns his eyes to the sky. It's darkening already, and quickly too – the sun set without her noticing – and they can already see stars twinkling above.

 _(for a moment, she hates them for being so unmoved by this tragedy she's living)_

 _(for a moment, she hates the world for going on)_

Once, there had been so much light pollution all you could see was the moon. That hadn't been the case in years. Now, while the sky above London was nowhere near as clear as it was by the countryside, it was filled with so many stars that sometimes Hannah had to wonder how anyone could ever believe that the night was dark.

"Do you remember the first time you saw the stars?" Her father asks her abruptly. "You were so young… You climbed on my shoulder and made me name them all – I'll admit I made up more than a few names – and we ended up falling asleep outside. You were sick for a week after that, your mother nearly had my skin."

He sounds so wistful that Hannah can't answer, her throat too tight with emotion to get out a single world.

The truth is, she doesn't remember any of this. It could be that she had been too young then, or it could be that I had been one of those moments when Hannah hadn't been aware of anything that was going on – one of the moments where Alicia was the one living this life.

She nods anyway, because to her father this is a happy memory, and he is happy right now. She can't spoil that, not when this is probably the last change he gets to feel anything but pain.

"What do you say we do it again, just you and I, my last night in this world."

Hannah thinks about what awaits them back at the shelter, about the future with no one by her side that's in front of her (and yes, children are supposed to outlive their parents, but not like this, never like this), and thinks about accepting.

"There's a curfew," she protests weakly, because no one wants to be caught after curfew.

"We'll be careful," he father retorts with a mischievous smile she hasn't seen in forever, and Hannah smiles back.

It's the best night of her life and she wishes it could last forever, wishes that she could freeze time in these perfect instant where her father is back to his happy self and by her side, but she can't.

All too soon the sun rises again, and they have to head back to the shelter.

Before that though, Hannah hugs her father (for in this moment he is hers, wrong universe or not) and hides her tears in his shirt until she can't cry anymore.

"I'm sorry sweetheart, I never wanted this for you," he apologizes with a teary smile when they finally reach the shelter.

"I know," she answers, because that's all she can really say about that. "Say hi to mom for me, okay?"

"I will, but don't you dare come join us anytime soon," and that's her father right there, joking until he can't anymore.

"I promise," Hannah swears. "I'll miss you," she adds, because she feels like it's important that he knows that.

Her father just smiles at her, sad and proud, and it's the last time she ever sees him.

He reports himself and they take her for testing – the tests will say that she's healthy though, and they'll let her go – but they won't let her see her father again.

 _(she lies to think that she felt the moment they put him to sleep, but the truth is that one moment he was there and the next he wasn't, and she'll never know which moment that was)_

 _(if she pretends real hard, it almost doesn't hurt)_

In an ideal world, she'd have time to grieve, but this isn't an ideal world. She's thrown right back into the street – turns out, the shelters don't keep people won't can't 'contribute to society', or rather to what's left of society – and this time Hannah knows she's here to stay.

Even knowing that, it's better than last time: she's learned a lot about surviving since then, and she knows people there. She's far from the only one in her group to have lost people, far from the first one to be thrown out on the streets. They make do, and so will she.

Surprisingly enough, not much else changes. Apart from no longer having an unique safe place to go back to in the evening, Hannah's life is remarkably similar to the one she lead _before_ – with one exception: no one calls her Alicia any longer. Her father had been the only one, save a few officials who only ever looked at her identification papers, to call her by that name, since everyone else knew her only by Hannah.

The day Fred finally shows up, she's not even surprised. She's been expecting him.

 _(some of her dreams – most of them – over the years had been about him too, about how they might meet in this life, because while Hannah has long started to wonder which of the worlds she knows is the one she belongs in, there is one thing she never ever doubts, and that's that Fred will be there, by her side, in the end)_

 _('bleed-through,' she'll tell herself in the mornings, blushing as she remembers heated kisses_ they _haven't shared yet, and it almost doesn't sound like a lie)_

She'd bet anything he hadn't been expecting the punch to the face though, and that almost makes her feel better.

"What the hell did you do to me?" She can't help but yell, her hands itching to hit him again. Seeing his face brings back memories of a calm meeting in a café where he had been far too mysterious, and she's spent the last two decades feeling like she's slowly spiraling into insanity, because this isn't her life and yet it feels like it is, in a way so different from anything she's ever experienced in the thousands of lives she's dreamed of that he has to have had something to do with it.

"Not here," he answers firmly but apprehensively, looking at the small gathering of people they've attracted.

Hannah sighs but nods, because she might be angry right now but not so much that she can't see the logic in having a private conversation, and gestures at him to follow her.

The small crowd parts before them, and she leads him to a secluded area where she knows they won't be disturbed anytime soon. Besides, her friends trust her (just as she trusts them), they won't come looking for a while.

"Explain. Now," she spits out, glaring at him. She's satisfied to see that she split his lip, even if that doesn't seem to bother him much. She guesses it wouldn't, not with the world ending around them.

"So eager to get me alone in a back alley?" Fred quips with a smirk as he nonchalantly lays his back against the wall.

"This isn't the time for jokes," Hannah manages through gritted teeth. "I want to know what's going on – no, I deserve to know. So tell me."

Wiping his hands on his pants' legs, Fred sighs and relents. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Hannah states, an eyebrow arched disbelievingly. What about that hadn't been clear the last couple of times she had asked?

"That might take a while," Fred says with a sort of sad smile, and for a moment Hannah forgets her anger – after all, it stands to reason that whatever hell she's living in, Fred is too, since they apparently always meet there.

Except that he knows so much more than she does, and she can see in the way he holds himself that _this_ – this weird awareness she's still not quite used to – isn't new to him.

"I'm sure it will."

 **.x.**

Fred's story is amazing. He's not a great storyteller – her parents, both in this life and in her other, realer one ("We call it our prime life," Fred tells her with a soft look in his eyes, and Hannah can see why she'd fallen for him in so many of her lives) had been much better at it – but he makes up for it with passion and the sheer attractiveness of the story.

Hannah knows already that they're not the only people to be afflicted by this thing (she'd call it a curse, but that'd mean she's accepting that there might be a higher power out there somewhere messing with their lives) from her last, and only, conversation with Fred, but just as she suspected, there is so much more to it than that.

"The first thing you have to know, is that there's a reason we usually try not to meet face to face. It causes… complications," Fred explains with a wince.

"No, really? I hadn't noticed," Hannah replies with a drawl, deliberately not thinking about everything she's experienced in this life.

A ghost of a smirk appears on Fred's face, there and gone so fast Hannah thinks she might have imagined it. "Yes, well… It happens. We don't really know why, or how it works, but suffices to say that it's better for everyone involved if we keep this particular circle of awareness small."

There's a story there, and from Fred's closed-off expression, Hannah can guess it's not a happy one.

He goes on to explain that they make it so anyone like them usually meets only one or two others, so that they're not completely alone in this, but no more, and can form a sort of chain that goes back to their leaders.

"We have leaders?"

"We don't have anything like a president or a king, if that's what you're asking, but we have some kind of… oversight, I guess," Fred shrugs. "Mostly they record things and answer questions."

Hannah is struck by a mental image of a bunch of old men sitting in dusty offices, writing on parchment as they mutter to themselves. It's funnier than it should probably be.

Fed is talking about something else now – explaining some of the differences between their lives before and after they're 'awakened', which is apparently the official name for what happened to her when she met Fred back in her world. He tells her nothing she hasn't realized for herself, which is probably why her mind wanders to what's been bugging her since he started talking.

"Wait, just back up a minute. How long have you been 'awake' in this – how long have you been able to _be_ yourself in these other lives?" Her heart beats so quickly it feels like it's trying to get out of her chest. She's felt this enough times to recognize panic, but she nonetheless tries to swallow back the sour taste in her mouth.

She doesn't know what to think. If he's been himself all along, and it's pretty clear from everything he seems to know about their condition and the way he behaved when they 'first' met in her world, then that means he remembers a whole lot more about all the lives that they've shared than she does, which is more than slightly disturbing.

It isn't fair too, a part of her mind whispers, that he gets everything when she can only recall the barest of impressions and some bright flashes of emotion.

Life isn't fair, she thinks ruthlessly as she sqme flashes of memoriesing when sheonly lives that they'en they ' her mouth.

er to themseuashes her earlier thoughts, and waits to see what Fred has to say.

"You- I-" Fred stutters a bit, clearly taken off guard, before he finds his footing again. "It's not what you think."

"Not what I think? I don't even know what _to_ think! I thought I was finally getting used to being unable to have the same kind of normal, restful nights everyone seems to enjoy, I was finally getting over thinking I might just be crazy and a hopeless case, and then you came out of nowhere and ruined that!

"I didn't ask for this," Hannah continues hysterically as she gestures wildly to their surroundings. "I have one life, and it's hard enough to keep it straight, I don't need to live another, especially not one that's in the middle of- of a _zombie apocalypse_!" She pauses, trying to catch her breath. Her cheeks feel warm from her outburst, and she doesn't need a mirror to know that she's blushing, but she refuses to be ashamed.

"I didn't ask for this," she finally repeats, calmer now, though her eyes still sting.

"I know you didn't," Fred replies sympathetically, laying a hand hesitantly on her arm. It's a far cry from his earlier 'devil may care' behavior, but somehow that reassures Hannah more than anything else he could have done. "I didn't either – none of us ever do."

He sighs, and though she wants to interrupt again – though she needs to rant at someone about all of this, and he's the only one with whom she can actually say anything – she lets him talk. He looks downward as he speaks, and Hannah guesses that it's because it's easier that way than it is to face her.

"I have five brothers and one sister. None of them are like me – thank God for that too – but one day my youngest brother brought back a friend home and I just knew.

"Everyone thought I just had an overactive imagination before. They told me I should consider becoming a writer or an artist, but to me it felt too real for any of that, and when I met Harry – that's my brother's friend – well he explained to me why."

Fred looks up, and Hannah is surprised to see how desperate he looks – it tugs at her heartstrings in an unpleasant way.

 _(his face is made to smile and laugh, the part of her mind that keeps trying to get her to open her whispers, don't let him wallow in this)_

"You've felt it too, haven't you, when we met?" He asks, and if Hannah had thought he looked desperate before it's nothing to how utterly hopeless he looks now.

Hannah's not sure though. She had felt something other than surprise when their paths had finally crossed, but she can't quite put a name on it. Besides, considering how many of their lifetimes they've apparently spent together (all of them, her mind supplies not so helpfully), a little familiarity was surely to be expected.

Still, she nods. After all, what's a little white lie, moreover one that might not even be a lie, if it gets some hope and joy back in those brown eyes.

Fred speaks again, explaining how he had gotten used to being able to influence the lives he used to barely remember once he woke up – "You'll remember everything now, by the way, even if it still fades in the background. It's slightly more potent than actual dream memories are, but it's not really bothering. At least not for me." – and how this, what they're doing, their way of living, also entails more than simply being able to dream of other universes.

 _("There's a threat out there," Fred says in an hushed voice, like he's revealing a great secret and is afraid someone will try to keep him quiet. "They're called Death Eaters, and they're trying to destroy the world."_

" _Which one?" Hannah asks before she can stop herself._

" _All of them," Fred replies, horror undisguised in his voice, and Hannah would scoff, except…_

 _Except she may not remember as many lives as Fred does, but she has enough leftover impressions from them anyway to know that a fair few of them didn't end well, and that it hadn't only been because of accidents.)_

"I'm no hero," Hannah protests, because no matter what Fred might be implying, she's not some kind of Chosen One, like the heroines of some of the fantasy books she likes to read when no one's looking.

She has no super powers, and she's not about to take arms or go on quests to save the world.

Fred laughs, light and quick, and he seems so surprised by it that Hannah feels an unexpected burst of pity for him. "No one's asking you to be one. You just have to be who you are, honestly. That's all anyone can ask of you anyway."

"You don't think I could fight?" She finally asks, because as reassuring as it is to hear that he believes she can stay out of this conflict, it's also kind of offending.

Fred rolls his eyes. "Please, you've kicked my ass more times than I care to remember – if you want to fight you can." He falls silent after this, as if he's only realized what he's just said.

"I don't remember any of them," Hannah whispers.

"I know," Fred answers, and for a moment he just looks stricken. The next moment, it's gone and they're back to their previous conversation. "Anyway, most of the time, it never even comes to a fight."

With his back still to the wall, Fred slides down until he's sitting down, crossed legs on the hard ground. Sighing, Hannah follows. At least the ground isn't too dirty, and she had been getting tired of standing still.

"I've never actually seen one, you know, and you haven't either, not as far as I know. And you'd know if you had. But they're out there. All I know is that they want to make sure that the universe where we come from is the only one left. I think they believe it's the best because of that, and that it somehow makes all the other universes lesser.

"They probably engineered this whole debacle here too. It wouldn't be the first time they unleash some kind of virus to wipe out everyone."

Hannah shudders. It sounds crazy but she believes him. She doesn't see what he'd have to gain by lying, and besides, her instincts are telling him to trust him, and she's learned to trust her instincts.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" She asks before she can stop herself.

"I thought you didn't want to be a hero?" Fred shots back, his glare half-amused, half-questioning.

"I don't," Hannah confirms, "but this isn't right, and people are dying. If we can do something about it, then why shouldn't we?"

Fred's expression is so unbearably fond that Hannah has to avert her eyes. "I missed you," he states, and it sounds almost like a promise (almost like worship).

"That wasn't me," Hannah replies instantly. "Or I wasn't her. This is only _our_ second conversation, you can't have missed me."

"That's not how it works," Fred says with the exasperated face of someone who's had to explain this too many times to count, and she guesses he might have. "You're still you, no matter what universe you're in. You're just… a different you."

"A different me is not _me_ ," Hannah says firmly, because she may have taken over Alicia quickly enough for everyone to take Hannah's mannerisms as natural, but there had been several moments where Hannah had realized that her counterpart was very different.

"Like you're not different from the Hannah I had coffee with?" Fred points out with an arched eyebrow. "Experiences shape people, you know. I think it's to be expected that none of your lives are identical. It'd be pretty boring if they were anyway, don't you think?" He says with a teasing smirk.

"That's not the point and you know it."

"Then what is?"

He looks genuinely curious and for a moment Hannah hates herself for what she's about to ask, but she has to know. She has to, because none of this makes sense to her, not yet, and she needs to understand.

"Why do you keep living your life _with me_ if you have the choice not to, if you have the opportunity to be anything you want?"

Somehow Fred doesn't look offended. No, instead he looks kind of amused.

"What makes you think I can stop myself from falling in love with you every time?" He replies, and her mind goes _oh._

 _("You killed me, once, though," Hannah will point out later, when they're walking hand in hand in a world that's not on the edge of falling apart._

" _You killed me first," he replies with a laugh, but there's pain there too, so Hannah elbows him playfully to bring him back to the present._

" _I don't remember it so it doesn't count," she states, swallowing back the guilt she can't help but feel, "and that's not an answer."_

" _You had to be stopped," he simply says, "so I stopped you."_

 _Hannah knows she should be afraid – he just admitted to killing her after all – but she also remembers blood on her hands (so much blood, her mind whispers)._

 _She's not scared._

 _The rest of their walk is silent.)_

After Fred's revelation, he falls silent. Hannah can't fault him for that. She'd do the same, if she just told someone that they were essentially soulmates.

"Are we soulmates?" Hannah blurts out, because she never believed in anything like that, not really, but they've apparently been meeting in every universe and Fred always falls, and she may not remember much but she does know that in most of her lives he was by her side whenever he could.

To her surprise, Fred actually blushes for a few seconds. "I don't think those are real. And I'm pretty sure that the fact that our paths cross so often is just a side-effect of what we're able to do."

This isn't an answer, Hannah notes, but it's also probably the best thing she's going to get, so she lets it go. She's not sure she wants to know anyway.

The silence between them is slightly awkward this time, but Hannah takes advantage of it to look at Fred.

She knows from earlier that he's taller than her, and she's already categorized everything of note when they met for coffee, a universe and a lifetime ago (she deliberately avoids thinking about how he knows her naked) but there are some subtle differences.

He looks more tired for one, and also more on guard than she remembers him being, but this is to be expected considering this world is constantly trying to kill them via not-zombie attacks.

There are other things though. She doesn't know him well enough to be sure, but she'd swear his red hair is a shade lighter than it was the last time they met, and his nose is slightly more crooked.

He's still recognizable as Fred though, and those differences are nothing she hasn't noticed on her own body – her teeth are straighter in this body, for example, which is decidedly unfair, but her hair is slightly less well behaved, which kind of makes up for it.

"So…" Hannah finally says to break the silence, "is there anything we can do about the apocalypse?"

Fred looks startled out of his thoughts, but he smiles with a determination Hannah hasn't seen in anyone else in years when he replies. "Well, we can try."

They spend the rest of the night plotting, and the rest is, as they say, history.

 _(in this life, they win)_

 _(in an ideal world, they'd even get to see it, but it's been established long ago that this wasn't an ideal world, so they don't. Hannah and Fred die young and no one but a handful of street urchins remembers their names and what they did, but they wouldn't want it any other way)_

 **.x.**

Elsewhere, Hannah wakes up with her heart racing as she waits for the memories to recede. True to Fred's words what feels like years ago – and it has been years, in a way – they slot themselves at the back of her mind like they've always belonged there, and Hannah knows that unless she deliberately tries to recall them they'll stay at the back of mind, whisper-like.

She calls in sick after that – apologizes to Susan even if she doesn't tell her why, because she likes the other woman and really is sorry she has to lie for this, but this is too important – and two hours later she's back in that café where they had their first actual conversation, a latté in one hand and Fred sitting on the other side of the table like their discussion was never interrupted.

It feels weirdly exhilarating to be here, and Hannah knows that it's due in no small part to this secret they're sharing.

The last time she saw Fred's face may have been as they were dying, slowly bleeding out, but right now she can't stop smiling.

For once, she's actually looking forward to the evening.

They may not have been intimate in that last life, but Hannah likes to think they had been getting there. Who knows what'll happen in the next, where they'll get more time together?

Finding that out, Hannah thinks, might even be fun.

 _(in their next life, she's a queen. It's not as glamourous as it seems – there are so many responsibilities coming with the title that sometimes Hannah just wants to rip her hair out – but when she's approached by Fred's family for an arranged marriage between them, she thinks the politics might very well be worth it)_

 _(well, the wedding night definitely is)_


End file.
